Business Communication

Effective Presentation Skills

An Overview
Making a good oral presentation is an art that involves attention to the needs of your audience, careful planning, and attention to delivery.

The Audience
Some basic questions to ask about an audience are: Who will I be speaking to? What do they know about my topic already? What will they want to know about my topic? What do I want them to know by the end of my talk?

Engaging the audience

One of the secrets of a good presentation is to involve the audience.
Maintain eye contact Ask for feedback

Look confident

Planning your Presentation

In an effective presentation, the content and structure are adjusted to the medium of speech. As a general rule, expect to cover much less content than you would in a written report. Make difficult points easier to understand by preparing the listener for them, using plenty of examples and going back over them later. Leave time for questions within the presentation. Give your presentation a simple and logical structure. Include an introduction in which you outline the points you intend to cover and a conclusion in which you go over the main points of your talk.

Structure of the Presentation

Introduction Body Conclusion Questions

Introduction A good introduction does four things:

Attracts and focuses the attention of the audience Puts the speaker and audience at ease Explains the purpose of the talk and what the speaker would like to achieve Gives an overview of the key points of the talk

Body The body of a presentation must be presented in a logical order that is easy for the audience to follow and natural to your topic. Here are some questions you can ask yourself about the examples you include:
Are they relevant to the experience of the audience? Are they concrete? Will the audience find them interesting? Are they varied? Are they memorable?

Conclusion A good conclusion does two things:

Reminds the audience of your key points
Reinforces your message Your conclusion should end the presentation on a positive note and make the audience feel that have used their time well listening to you.

Delivering your Presentation

People vary in their ability to speak confidently in public, but everyone gets nervous and everyone can learn how to improve their presentation skills by applying a few simple techniques. The main points to pay attention to in delivery are the quality of your voice, your rapport with the audience, use of notes and use of visual aids.

Voice quality Your voice is your main channel of communication to the audience, so make sure you use it to its best effect. Volume Is your voice loud enough or too loud? Adjust your volume to the size of the room and make sure the people at the back can hear. In a big room take deep breaths and try to project your voice rather than shout.

Speed and fluency Speak at a rate so your audience can understand your points. Do not speed up because you have too much material to fit into the time available. Try not to leave long pauses while you are looking at your notes or use fillers such as 'um' or 'er'. Use pauses to allow the audience to digest an important point. Repeat or rephrase difficult or important points to make sure the audience understands.
Clarity Speak clearly. Face the audience and hold your head up. Your speech will be clearer if you look directly at the members of the audience while you speak. Keep your hands and notes away from your mouth and keep your eyes on the audience when you are talking about overhead transparencies. If you have to look at the whiteboard or the overhead projector, stop talking until you are ready to face the audience again. Pronunciation You may not be able to improve your general pronunciation much before an important presentation. However, you can make sure you know how to pronounce names and difficult words. Do not use exaggerated intonation or pronunciation of individual words. Your natural speaking style will be good enough as long as you speak clearly.

Rapport with the audience involves:

Attention to eye contact, Sensitivity to how the audience is responding to your talk and What you look like from the point of view of the audience.

These can be improved by practicing in front of one or two friends or video-taping your rehearsal.

Effective use of Notes

Good speakers vary a great deal in their use of notes. Some do not use notes at all and some write out their talk in great detail. If you are not an experienced speaker it is not a good idea to speak without notes because you will soon lose your thread. You should also avoid reading a prepared text aloud or memorizing your speech as this will be boring.

Speaking without notes Some presenters do not use notes at all. They just remember the outline of what they are going to say and talk.
Advantages: If you do it well, you will seem natural, knowledgeable and confident of your topic. You will also find it easier to establish rapport with the audience because you can give them your full attention.

Disadvantages: It is easy to lose your thread, miss out whole sections of your talk or to go over the time limit. People who speak without notes often fail to convey a clear idea of the structure of their ideas to the audience.

This is a high-risk strategy. A few people can present effectively without notes. If you are one of them, good luck!

Reading from a script Some experienced presenters write down every word they intend to say. They may read the whole script aloud or they may just use it as a back-up.
Advantages: You will find it easier to keep within the time limit. You are likely to less nervous and make fewer mistakes. Disadvantages: It is difficult to establish rapport with the audience. You may sound like you are reading aloud rather than speaking to an audience. Listeners often lose interest in a presentation that is read aloud. This is a low-risk strategy employed by many experienced nonnative speaker presenters. If you use it, you will need to develop the skill of reading aloud while still sounding natural. Few people can do this effectively.

Note cards Many presenters write down headings and key points on cards or paper. They use them as reminders of what they are going to say.
Advantages: You will find it easier to establish rapport with the audience. Your presentation will be structured but you will sound natural.
Disadvantages: You may find it difficult to keep within the time limit. If your notes are too brief, you may forget what you intended to say.

This is a medium-risk strategy used by many experienced presenters and the one most often recommended. The disadvantages of note cards can be overcome if you practice your presentation before you give it.

Visual aids
Visual aids help to make a presentation more lively. They can also help the audience to follow your presentation and help you to present information that would be difficult to follow through speech alone. The two most common forms of visual aid are overhead transparencies (OHTs) and computer slide shows (e.g. PowerPoint). Objects that can be displayed or passed round the audience can also be very effective and often help to relax the audience. Some speakers give printed handouts to the audience to follow as they speak. Others prefer to give their handouts at the end of the talk, because they can distract the audience from the presentation.

Overhead transparencies
Some presenters use their OHTs as notes. They use them like note cards as reminders of what they are going to say. Handouts and PowerPoint presentations can be used in the same way.
Advantages: It is easy to establish rapport with the audience because you are sharing your notes with them. You will sound natural and your presentation will seem well-organised. Disadvantages: You may find it difficult to keep within the time limit. Your presentation may be dominated by your OHTs. Unless you are careful, you may find that you are talking to the overhead projector rather than the audience.

This is a medium-to-high-risk strategy. Used well, it can be very effective, especially by presenters who are used to speaking without notes.

Purpose
The aim of using transparencies is to support the points you want to make in speech. The audience will be able to follow better if they can see your key points and examples as well as hearing them. OHTs can
Reinforce a point you have made Show what something looks like Illustrate relationships Show information patterns Present figures or graphs Summarize key points Help the audience follow passages or quotations you read aloud

OHTs are not the only form of visual aid available to you. For example, if you want to show what something looks like, it may be better to show the audience the thing itself rather than a picture of it.

Design To be effective, OHTs must be attractive and easy to read. Some basic rules are:
Use large fonts and images Present one key point or example per OHT Use headings and bullet points in preference to lines of text Use strong colors and don't use too many Use simple graphs in preference to tables of figures Pay attention to layout. Use the centre of the OHT rather than the edges

Using overhead projectors Overhead projectors are designed to allow the speaker to project an image while facing the audience. The image may be a picture or graphic, notes indicating the points you are making or longer texts that you want to read aloud. Whenever you use an OHT, the attention of the audience will be divided between you and the image, so there are a few basic rules to follow:
Make sure the image can be seen. If possible go to the room in advance and check that everything on your OHTs can be read easily from the back of the room. If possible, make sure the projector is in a convenient position. Decide where you want to stand when speaking and then position the projector where you can get to it easily. This will usually be on the side of your body that you normally use for writing (i.e. your left side if you are left-handed) Keep your slides in order in a pile next to the projector and put them back in order in another pile as you take them off the projector. If possible, control the lighting in the room yourself so that there is always a light shining on you. If your OHTs are easy to read, you will not need to turn off the lights. When you are presenting, avoid looking at the projected image and the transparency on the projector. It is a good idea to print out your slides on paper to keep with your notes so you can refer to them while you are speaking. If you want to draw attention to a point on an OHT, put a pen on top of it and leave it pointing at the point you want to draw attention to. Don't point with your finger because you will have to look at the projector while you do so. If you want the audience to read longer texts on OHTs (e.g. quotations or tables of figures) give them time to do so. There is no point in putting an OHT on the projector if the audience does not have time to read it.

 OHTs and handouts

Some speakers give handouts for the audience to read while they are talking. The advantage of OHTs over handouts is that they focus attention on you and your talk. If you want to give a handout, it is often a good idea to wait until the end of the presentation before distributing it. Often members of the audience want to note down points from your OHTs. This can distract them from following the presentation, so it is a good idea to distribute information that the audience will want to note down on handout. As soon as someone starts taking notes, tell the audience that they do not need to do so because they will get the information on the handout.